


hearts turn colder

by transstevebucky



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Established Relationship, Grief/Mourning, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-02
Updated: 2018-07-02
Packaged: 2019-06-01 01:29:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15132092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/transstevebucky/pseuds/transstevebucky
Summary: “You wanna go for a ride?”Paul’s got his legs crossed, head back, throat catching the sun. His adam’s apple bobs as he speaks, and it makes Daryl want totaste. He wishes for a moment they were inside, in the trailer, steaming up those shitty windows again.“What kinda ride you thinkin’?”“Hm,” Paul says, and there’s a wicked tilt to his mouth. “You tempt me. But I was actually thinking of something else.”“Sure,” Daryl says, and watches Paul’s smile grow, from small and loose to wide across his face, eyes squinting with the force of it, “love to.”





	hearts turn colder

**Author's Note:**

> you ever have a fic idea that hurts you so much you kind of hate yourself for it and then you're like.. well if i have to deal with it. then. everyone else does too? yeah. here's that
> 
> title from all my love by ariana grande

The day starts out normal, which is maybe worse than the alternative.

If he’d woken up to bloodshed and rage, maybe he’d do things different. 

If he hadn’t woken up to Paul’s drooling form clinging to his back, snoring against his neck, well. Maybe he’d have been more prepared for the coming hours, for the agony awaiting him.

Maybe this is just how it was always meant to be; not constant pain, no, but a lulling into a false sense of security.

He’s made for war, is the thing.

Maybe he just wasn’t ever made to hold onto what comes after.

+++

It isn’t a firefight. 

It’s a herd, because it always is, six rows deep and growing still, growling mouths soaked with viscera.

Paul laughs from behind him, face tucked between Daryl’s shoulder blades as they play the new world’s form of chicken.

“You think we can outrun them?”

“Think we can do anything we want,” Daryl grins back, and Paul kisses him on the throat, over a tiny mole that Paul insists calling a beauty mark.

The smell of rot masks anything else. The growling masks what the stench doesn’t.

By the time Daryl notices the glint of light in the trees, the front wheel of the bike he spent months fixing up is blown out beneath them.

+++

_Paul drinks his coffee, steals it right from his hands, all mischievous grin and hopping out of Daryl’s reach as he takes a deep gulp._

_There’s crusted sleep-gunk around his eyes, and Daryl’s so in love his chest burns with need for him, to keep him close, safe._

_“You’re beautiful,” he tells him, and Paul’s so shocked by Daryl’s admission he doesn’t even seem to realise when Daryl downs the rest of his own stolen coffee, one hand against Paul’s hip._

_Or maybe he does notice, but he feels just as in love in that moment as Daryl does. Shrouded in the morning light, hair turned golden, skin yellow-pink._

+++

_“You wanna go for a ride?”_

_Paul’s got his legs crossed, head back, throat catching the sun. His adam’s apple bobs as he speaks, makes Daryl want to taste. He wishes for a moment they were inside, in the trailer, steaming up those shitty windows again._

_“What kind you thinkin’?” Daryl asks, leaning close, burying his face in the soft flesh under Paul’s armpit. He’s got a weird obsession with it; completely hairless, baby-smooth, always sweet smelling. Paul acts like he finds it weird, but he’s gotten into the habit of stealing Daryl’s shirts, the ones that dip low under his arms, that gape on Paul because he’s so much slighter._

_“Hm,” Paul says, and there’s a wicked tilt to his mouth. “You tempt me. But I was actually thinking of something else.”_

_He points vaguely at where Daryl’s been storing the old bike, tucked under a tarp with one of Hilltop’s ten-speeds._

_It runs off solar power, now, something Eugene suggested and Daryl agreed to because the last time he punched him Rick preached to him at dinner._

_“Sure,” Daryl says, and watches Paul’s smile grow, from small and loose to wide across his face, eyes squinting with the force of it, “love to.”_

_Paul knows what he means._

_His fingers curl around Daryl’s, squeezing, and they leave not long after._

+++

"I can’t,” Daryl chokes out, and everything is crimson, dripping. The world is vermillion, and his breath catches in his throat, gargling, “I can’t do this. Don’t make me do this. I can’t leave you. I Paul. I _promised._ ”

“Breathe,” Paul tells him, eyes glazed and wild. There’s chunks of brown-red matting his hair to his cheeks, his jaw, hands trembling where they close over Daryl’s wrists, grip vice tight. “Baby, breathe for me. You’ve got this. You can do this. Move, baby, it’s time to move. We don’t die, darling.”

Paul’s hand disappears, there and then not, and Daryl’s scream catches before it even hits his teeth, curdles in his lungs. “Don’t leave me,” he begs, but it’s too late; the Paul he remembers, the Paul with bloodied hands and frantic eyes, that Paul’s already gone. He wants so badly for this to be a dream, to wake up sweating but with the both of them alive. “Paul, don’t _leave me._ ”

It’s too late a request. The boots that were on Paul’s feet are kicking against the ground, now, scraping in a horrific shriek against tarmac. 

“Move, darling,” Paul’s voice tells him, but it isn’t the voice of the man who just got pulled from him, and Daryl shudders as he stares at the bloodstained coat, the knife belt feet away. He is not here. He is not real.

Once a pool of blood gets too big, there is no coming back.

The entire world is crimson, and Daryl cannot move.

+++

_Daryl doesn’t remember falling in love._

_He wishes he did. That he had a date, a time, an exact moment to place to all the feelings that make his chest feel too tight and too big at the same time._

_But he doesn’t. It was a slow progression, much like the trust he put in Rick, the feelings he has for his entire family._

_Love has never come easy to him, so by the time he noticed it, it was too late to ignore._

_He knows the first time he realised._

_A night on watch, Paul talking about some old movie he used to watch, a romantic comedy, hands flailing as he spoke. Dramatic and wild and fucking gorgeous, skin sparkling under the stars._

_Daryl’s never been into the idea of beating around the bush. He’s blunt, and so is Paul, and at least half of that is the reason he likes him so much. Loves him so much._

_“Can I kiss you?” It’d come out unbidden, but entirely too eager, voice cracking from the want._

_It had been a while since he’d wanted like that._

_“Oh,” Paul had said, swallowing suddenly, blinking even though the night wasn’t any brighter than it had been mere seconds ago, “yes. Yes, okay.”_

_So he had._

+++

There’s hands tearing at his clothes. Dead hands. Rotting nails, peeling skin, blood oozing down his jacket.

The blood is not fresh. Does not match the color staining his nails rust-red. It is almost better, being surrounded by the stench of the already dead than the dying.

Paul’s voice is singing in his head, some sweet melody he always calls out in the morning when he’s showering, a melody that makes Daryl feel at home.

A melody he used to sing.

The blood on Daryl’s hands flakes off when his fingers start trembling too hard, and he stumbles through the crowd of the dead with a pounding heart.

 _Eat me,_ he thinks, but he has never been a coward. For the first time, he hates that about himself.

If he was less brave, less stubborn, maybe his heart would have stopped on impact with the tarmac. Maybe he wouldn’t have to watch Paul get pulled into a herd, blood staining his face, matting his hair down, burned from the crash.

But he did. He has. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever stop seeing it; Paul’s eyes gone frantic, wild. No longer the peaceful Jesus persona, but every part a terrified man not ready to die.

+++

_“Marry me,” Paul says, two weeks after they start dating._

_He’s grinning, smug to the very tops of his cute ears, and Daryl flicks him in the gut and tells him to fuck off._

_“Marry me,” Paul says again, a month after that, and there’s rabbit meat caught between his front two teeth and he looks a mess, and Daryl still loves him more than maybe anything else._

_Daryl laughs at him, gestures for him to clean his mouth, and Paul pouts but there’s a glint in his eyes._

_“Marry me,” Paul says, breathless, spread out beneath Daryl on the bed, hands gripping the headboard, watching as Daryl moves on top of him with eyes filled with awe._

_Daryl snorts, rolls his hips until Paul stops being able to speak at all, and he tries not to think about the desperate need in his chest._

_“Marry me,” Paul mumbles, sleep in his eyes, hair out to here, face puffy from a night spent buried in his pillow._

_Daryl smiles, turns to him, presses a kiss to his mouth, and says yes._

_The sour taste doesn’t penetrate the way Paul goes rigid and then whimpers, hands clasping at every bit of skin he can reach._

_“You’ll marry me?” Paul asks, an hour after that, mouth dark and kiss-bruised._

_“Yeah,” Daryl tells him, voice breaking, “any time, anywhere.”_

+++

“Keep moving.”

Daryl moves.

There’s a herd at his back, a machete in his hand, and so much black fog in his head he can’t see the forest for the trees.

“Move, baby,” Paul tells him, that ghostly apparition of him that Daryl has, now, the one of the man ten seconds before he was ripped away from him. Forever. “You’ve got to get back. For Hershel. Maggie. Rick, Carol. What about baby Judith? What about Carl? You can’t stop moving, my love, not for this.”

His ankles ache. He’s tripped more than once, he knows, fell and not gotten up until the shadows changed. He’s probably sprained something, maybe broken something else.

“Remember when we got married?” Daryl asks, voice hoarse.

He’s been walking for days, now. He thinks. He thinks it’s days. It’s hard to tell. It could have been minutes. He could still be stood in the middle of the herd, living out a life he will never live.

“And you fucked up the vows even though they were only a couple words long? Yeah. I remember, Daryl.” Paul sounds fond, though, the way he always is when they talk about that day.

“Remember how I promised never to leave you?” Daryl murmurs, and Paul’s apparition flinches. “Funny. I didn’t think you’d be the one to break that promise.”

+++

_It’s bright, the day they get married._

_They wake up, and the sun blinds them with it, like it’s just as happy about the events as they are._

_Paul kisses him, smiles into his mouth, lets Daryl rut against his hip for a long, slow moment before climbing out of bed and patting his flank, telling him to wash up and get ready._

_Daryl’s heart races just watching him, this beautiful, extraordinary man who has chosen to love him for whatever time they have left._

_Maggie’s the one who marries them. Grins the whole time, bouncing from foot to foot, a romantic to her very bones._

_Daryl spends the entire ceremony (if you can call it that- it’s just their family, the ones closest to them) blushing, fingers twitching._

_He fucks up the vows, but after, mouth against Paul’s jaw, he whispers, “ain’t never gonna leave you. Never gonna have to be without me. You’re stuck with me.”_

_“Good,” Paul says, eyes shining, pretty new ring on his finger, “that’s all I want.”_

_+++_

He gets to Hilltop.

He is covered in blood. He doesn’t look human.

Hell. He doesn’t even feel human.

The devastation on Maggie’s face is enough to make him want to use Paul’s knife to carve out his guts, to pry his heart from his ribs and bury it.

It is already gone. Swallowed. There will never be a moment with Paul at his back, not any more.

“He died,” Maggie says, and her voice is steady even though her knees collapse, “he died, didn’t he.”

Daryl stays silent, reaches for her.

His hands are rust-red, and moving is not enough.

+++

There is no grave. There is no body.

There is just a hole in a part of him that Paul used to own and now doesn’t.

Or maybe he does. Maybe that’s why nothing hurts, anymore, why breathing is a chore, why living in their trailer feels suddenly like punishment.

 _You are not enough_ , the voice in his head tells him, and he believes it. 

_You will never be enough,_ it continues, and he nods along.

 _You killed him_ , it says, and he loses any of the food he just ate over their kitchen floor.

+++

Two weeks, two days, eighteen hours, fifty six minutes, eight seconds.

Two weeks, two days, eighteen hours, fifty six minutes, nine seconds.

Two weeks, two days, eighteen hours, fifty six minutes, ten seconds.

+++

Three weeks, four hours, nine minutes, fifteen seconds.

Three weeks, four hours, nine minutes, sixteen seconds.

Three weeks, four hours, nine minutes, seventeen seconds.

+++

A month, one day, eleven hours, six minutes, one second.

A month, one day, eleven hours, six minutes, two seconds.

A month, one day, eleven hours, six minutes, three seconds.

+++

Five weeks. Five weeks. Five weeks. Five-.

+++

There’s a person sat at their kitchen table.

Hair tangled, matted with old blood and twisted together with bracken, skinny, scarred all over, face thinner than ever before.

For one second, Daryl doesn’t recognise him. And then, in a moment, he does.

“We don’t die. How many times do I have to tell you that?”

**Author's Note:**

> gaydaryl on tumblr, transrickgrimes on twitter!!
> 
> i love comments. hope this didn't hurt too bad


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